IBL14: Church Law

Power and Authority

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Religious studies

Lesson: 8-10

Genre: Lecture

Track: 144

Dictation Name: RR130CB144

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is 1st Corinthians 6:1-3, Power and Authority. 1st Corinthians, the 6th chapter, verses 1-3. Power and Authority.

“Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?”

This sentence: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world” Can be translated, as it has been by modern translators: “Do ye not know that the saints are to manage the world?” the word judge here has the same sense as in the book of Judges in the Old Testament; the book of those who governed Israel. And thus very clearly, the whole point here is that the early church was told that they should not go to the pagans and the pagan courts for judgement. They should go to their own authorities.

Now when Saint Paul wrote these words he was not writing anything new. It was a new matter to the Corinthians because the Corinthians included many Gentiles, but to any Jew it was a familiar statement.

To this day, in many Jewish communities, there is no resort in any conflict between Jews to outside courts. This particularly true among Orthodox Jews. They resort to their own religious courts. The judgment that is given is binding, even though it may involve thousands of dollars. Even though it may involve great properties. Thus Paul, in writing to the Corinthians was simply transferring from what was a practice in the Old Testament, a practice in Israel, of Palestine at that time, and a practice in the early church, to the Gentile Christians. And this practice continued among them until such time as Civil courts became Christian in their law.

The point of the whole requirement was that the courts of the world that had not been affected at all by Gods law, had no sense of justice. How shall we understand that?

Well, let’s look back into the ancient world, to Homer. Your humanists exalt Greek society, and Greek civilization, and Homer ostensibly gives us the classical, the heroic period of Greek life. It represents in the eyes of humanistic scholars something of an ideal. When we go to Homer we can find a great deal that is outrageous to any Christian conscience. But instead of going to the more outrageous episodes, let us take one that comes from the end of the Odyssey, and is something that is rarely ever remarked about. Odysseus, or Ulysses, after having fought in the Trojan wars, wanders for many, many years, experiences a great many interesting adventures before he turns up again at home. Now we would assume that anyone that long-lost, as far as his family knew, would have been presumed to have been dead. But not so in this case. During this long period, when the other soldiers who had fought in the Trojan war had returned home, and resumed their family responsibilities, it was assumed by these many persons, at home, that Ulysses or Odysseus was dead. Therefore, because he left a very wealthy estate, a great many men, many of them far, far younger than his presumed widow, began to pay court to her.

She however, stalled all of them. During the time that they were paying court, and his young son was growing up meanwhile to manhood, she was not in any position to throw her weight around, because many of those who were paying court were from some of the most prominent families in the community. As a result, while they were within the house of Odysseus or Ulysses day after day, they made themselves very much at home. Odysseus had fifty slave girls. They raped 12 of them, and treated them thereafter as their own private property as it were whenever they came onto the premises, ate food, and banqueted as they courted Penelope.

Finally of course Odysseus returns home, and together with his son Telemachus he wipes out all these suitors. But then, the two of them take the twelve slave girls who had been raped, and they hung them. There was no fault in the girls. It is very clearly admitted in the text of Homer that these girls had not been the offenders, they had been offended against.

But their presence was shameful to Odysseus and Telemachus. It reminded them of the insult they had endured. SO they hung them, and no one thought anything of it.

Now the point in citing Homer is this: the only concept of justice that existed in Homer was that a man should do what he pleased. If he was strong enough. And if it was on his own property, involving what was his. It never occurred to anyone that there might be anything wrong in hanging these 12 girls. The only trouble he got into was that some of the suitors came from some of the wealthiest families in the community.

He had the power to do what he wanted with what was his own, but then there might be quite a coalition of angry men against him, so he decided to take another journey and leave his wife Penelope alone for, who knows how many years, because the story ends there. The law, in other words, had no higher reach than man. The world of Homer was a world in which justice was whatever any man said it was in his own domain, or whatever state said it was within its domain. There was no concept of a higher justice, above and beyond men.

The same was true in Rome. In early Rome, a father had absolute power over his children, to sell them into slavery if he decided he could make a profit doing that, or to keep them if he chose. When this power was lost by the power it was only because the state gained a similar power over the people. In either case, whether in Greece or in Rome, law was essentially humanistic or man centered, and whether it was the law of the family or the law of the state it was total law. It was no different, or very little different from the law that you encounter in the jungles of darkest Africa. Justice was what you could do and get away with. What you had the power to do.

If this seems far-fetched as a statement, let me quote Plato in his Laws where he is talking about the power of the state. I quote: “The principle thing is that none, man or woman, should ever be without an officer set over him, and that none should get the mental habit, whether in earnest or in jest, on his individual responsibility. In a word, we must train the mind not even to consider acting as an individual, or know how to do it.”

This was the goal. To train the mind so it would not even know how to act like an individual, let alone consider it. This is totalitarianism with a vengeance. Absolute totalitarianism. Such was the humanistic mind in the ancient world, in the non-Christian, the non-Biblical communities. Can you see why Saint Paul said: “You don’t go to their courts.”

Now let us come to the modern world. 20th century, the 1920’s. Leopold and Loeb case, the celebrated murder case where two teenage boys murdered just to see what it was like, as an experiment and to prove it meant nothing. Very recently, Brigid Brophy, the wife of a very distinguished English scholar, and herself a prominent scholar has written on the Leopold and Loeb case, and I quote:

“What emerges from reading an account of the case is a failure, or rather a confusion on the part of society, which in all its dealings with Leopold and Loeb and their education, and what amounted to their further education, their trial, never offered them any reason why they should not murder, or why they should feel remorse. What it did offer them was God, and they saw through it. “He gave up the idea that there was a God” states one of the medical reports on Leopold. Saying that: “If a God exists some pre-God must have created him.” And this line of thinking he reasons by analogy. Having been taught the moral draws its sanction from God, the young men were simply being logical, and concluding that to jettison God was to jettison the moral law as well. Indeed, this in societies eyes was their crime, or at least the crime of Leopold, the more intelligent of the two. He reasoned, and having worked out his position by reason, he could not be induced to change it under emotional pressure from the threat of death. As the medical report records, he stated that: “Consistency has always been a sort of God to him.” Leopold could make nothing of Leopold except to classify him as abnormal, by which it meant that he was a non-conformer in his sexual tastes, his interests, and his very imagination.”

In other words, the whole point was, according to Mrs. Brophy, Leopold and Loeb were very intelligent! They saw that the only argument against murder is that there is a God who says you shouldn’t murder. And since they knew better, they murdered to prove it. And since society can’t prove there is a God, what right does it have to condemn them? Now here are your alternatives: as Plato puts it, Absolute totalitarianism, no higher law than what the state does, and man has no right even to imagine that anything else is possible. And on the other hand, the anarchism of Leopold and Loeb. These are the humanistic alternatives. And this is what humanism produces every time. There is no escaping these alternatives.

“But,” Saint Paul says: “The saints are to manage, to govern the world in terms of Gods law, which means they must know that law.” Now this brings us to the problem of power and authority. Because the whole question of law is a question of power and authority. Leopold and Loeb were denying both the power and the authority of God. Plato was affirming the power and the authority of the state. The question of authority is inseparable therefore from law, especially from law in any biblical sense.

Before we continue to discuss the question of authority, let us analyze the meaning of authority. In the dictionary sense it is: “The right to command and to enforce obedience, the right to act officially.” The origin of the word authority is the Latin “Augio”: to increase. This is a very interesting fact. Because authority has a natural increase to it. True authority prospers and abounds, it increases; the more a person exercises true authority, the more he increases in that true authority. The more you hear, for example, anyone faithfully expound scripture, the more authority his statement has with you. The more you go to a doctor you find reliable and trustworthy, practicing medicine in terms of basically sound concepts, the more his authority increases. In other words, the moral authority is true to itself, the more it increases. The more your father or your employer, or anyone in authority over you exercises that authority in terms of a basically faithful concept to what it is, the greater his authority becomes.

Now power and authority are not identical. They are very closely related, but they are not identical. Power is strength, it is force. Power can and very often does exist without authority. The power of Odysseus and Telemachus was a very real power, but it lacked authority in any Biblical sense.

Rome, in the days of Saint Paul, had very real power. it had formal authority in that it was legitimate government in terms of succession, but it was illegitimate in the sight of God. To make the illustration modern, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon had formal authority. They were properly elected, they held office in terms of civil law, but they did not have true authority because they did not rule in terms of God. We have a requirement to obey their formal authority, but we must recognize that essentially what they have is a formal authority, and very great power, but not true authority in terms of the word of God, because they pay no attention to it.

Denis de Rougemont has very ably cited the difference between power and authority. He writes and I quote: “One does not become a father by stealing a child. One can steal the child, not paternity. One can steal power, not authority.”

The authority that God requires of us, must come from Him. We cannot exercise any authority except in terms of His word. Jesus Christ declared: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.” And in Jesus Christ there is the perfect coincidence of power and authority. All the authority He has, He has total power commensurate with that total authority. The church is required to “teach all men and nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

But in our world today there is no coincidence of power and authority, not even an approximation. And as power becomes divorced from Godly authority, it becomes progressively demonic. Thus, a father has authority over a child. Over his wife. But if he begins to abuse that authority and exercise it illegitimately, to abuse them, to take advantage of them, to beat them, then that power is separated from His true authority. And the greater the gap between power and authority becomes, the more demonic that power becomes.

Christians therefore must seek the approximation of power and authority in society, in their lives, and in their imagination. And at this point, many Christians go astray.

This problem can best be illustrated by what one very fine man mentioned as he was discussing some of his own thinking. It suddenly came to him that some of his day dreams were satanic. Why? Being an intense conservative, and a man who, as a Christian conservative was giving a lot of money, a lot of time, energy, effort, to try and fight communism in this country and trying to fight socialism; he said that he came suddenly to the recognition that what he was daydreaming about was having enough power to line up all the communists and all the subversives and executing them. And enough power to convert all the other people suddenly to become Christians, and to make this the wonderful country it should be. That was his daydream. And it suddenly came to him that he was wrong. That his dreaming was in fact satanic.

I had been speaking on the temptations of Christ. Satan tempted Christ to compel belief by miracles, and to provide security from problems miraculously. And that was exactly what he was day dreaming about, to compel faith and to provide security from problems miraculously.

And so the recognition came to him: “I am fighting something satanic out there, but in the course of waging war against it, I am myself becoming satanic in my daydreams.” And he was right. Because he was separating the concept of power from authority. He was not making the two together as scripture requires. But then he raised a discerning question. He said: “Is the alternative then merely the way of conversion and love, without any law order and coercion, and without miracles? Or do miracles, laws, and coercions somehow have a place?” That was a thoughtful question and a difficult one. But scripture does deal with it.

In Matthew 13:58 we are told that Jesus in his own country Nazareth did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. The miracles were not conditional upon belief, He performed some. His power was entirely from Himself, it was not faith healing. But the purpose of His miracles was to glorify God. It was a part of Gods governing care over His own. So miracles have a place. God again and again has used miracles to deliver his saints, whether Elijah, or Moses, or the elect in the New Testament.

Similarly, there is a place for coercion. Justice and law require it. But, if there is not a people with faith, all the coercion in the world will not maintain and develop a social order. It is an impossibility. If tomorrow all the internal and external enemies of the United States were miraculously destroyed, the major result would be further decline and decay in the United States. Then men would have a freedom to sin with impunity! The citizenry would not be changed. Thus, the point of the daydream was humanistic. Its purpose was national peace and freedom; it was man’s order, not Gods purpose that was in mind.

The primary purpose of Gods miracles and of conversion is that man be reconciled to God, and that Gods purpose be furthered. Now, a by-product of this reconciliation of man with God is reconciliation of man with man and of man with himself. It is a freer country. It is peace and prosperity. But these things are by-products, they cannot be the goal.

Thus we cannot expect a society to prosper where power and authority are not brought together, where they do not work, one in harmony with the other. In our society they have separated. As a result our society has become demonic. But the requirement of our text is: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge, or manage, or govern the world?” This is the goal. Conversion is the starting point, Gods law is the means. The goal is that the reign of God prevail in the hearts of men and of nations.

And to that end, the word of God must be taught, and it must govern he hearts of men. The power and the authority of God must prevail in every realm. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that as we see the powers around us become progressively more and more demonic, that it is Thy power which prevails. And that before Thee all the powers of this world are as nothing, and Thy power shall rule and over rule in the affairs of men. We Thank Thee our Father that Thou hast called us to authority and power in Jesus Christ, and we pray that in faithfulness to Thee and obedience to Thy word, we may grow in power and in authority. That we may bring things progressively under Thy power and authority, exercising dominion over them in Thy name, and subduing them, in terms of Thy word. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. First of all, we must say that our courts today are not like the Greek court of ancient times; bad as they are, and they are bad. There is still some sense of a higher law and justice, the Supreme Court may deny it, but in spite of itself it occasionally still gives evidence of it. So we cannot call our courts entirely pagan and humanistic; they are moving in that direction. Thus, they can be resorted to although, they are as it were, a court of last resort. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, one reason why the churches today are falling apart is that they are not exercising tru authority. If they were exercising true authority they would grow in power, but because their authority is a formal authority: “I am the minister” “I am the elder” “I am the priest” and so on, and it isn’t a true authority, firmly grounded on the word of God, their authority collapses. Increasingly this is true in society at large. Why do you have increasing civil disobedience? Yes you can say a certain amount of it represents the work of communists and socialists, and subversive groups, but if we examine our own hearts, we don’t have much respect for the authority of the state today, because we know it isn’t a Godly authority. We cannot respect men who are hypocrites. Who are liars.

There was a statement made by Unruh last October before the election, it is hardly printable although it has been printed, as to what it took to be a politician today. Well the mildest way you could describe this statement was that the only way you can be a successful politician and get very far is to be a total bastard. Now that is a very mild, censored summary of what he said. In essence he was right. They reflect the character of the people at large, and themselves exemplify this decay. So their authority is gone with their own kind, and it is gone with us. And so you have increasingly the attempt to throw your weight around, in church, in state, in universities, power divorced from true authority. But power divorced from true authority breaks down progressively.

In the Soviet Union, power is used to the nth degree. They kill for almost anything. They send you into slave labor camps for a year or two on sentences that are life sentences, because they are going to work you to death. But what happens? If the policeman isn’t watching you they do as they please. They will risk death to do anything there, and the lawlessness is increasing. With all their efforts to modernize, a recent US News and World Report called attention to the fact that they are falling behind in ration to the United States in production. They can’t get the workers to produce. Now, this is what happens to power and authority apart from God; they separate, they become demonic, and they break down.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, the fact is however, your premillenialists represent the biggest single group in the United States. There is no group equal to them, but they are the most impotent group in the United States. In other words, there is something wrong with their authority. There is something wrong with their position. They are not able to amount to anything with it, so they have got millions lined up who believe in this, an incredible element in the population in America, impotent. Which is evidence enough they are not Godly. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] You and I are both saints. The biblical definition is that a saint is one who has separated himself unto Christ and is a believer in him. Now there are degrees of sainthood, and we grow as we grow in our obedience to the Lord, in our holiness, our sanctification, or to put in other way, Sainthood. Sanctification.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Oh yes you do. You have authority in this respect, that in your area you abide by Gods law. You exercise it in your home. You manifest it in the honest workmanship you produce, you are a producer, who is honest, has integrity. Who is under law. And you are prospering in terms of it.

Now, the more of us there are who will do us, the greater the authority of the saints will become. This was the dilemma of Rome, you see. Rome tried to wipe out the Christians; it finally resorted under Diocletian to an all-ought execution order, line ‘em up wholesale on the chopping block and knock off their heads. And they did as I mentioned before , to the point that when it came lunch time or quitting time, somebody had to come and pry the man’s hands from the ax handle because his fingers had gotten numb, he had been doing it so steadily. Bu they called halt to it finally, why? They were wiping out the producing element of society. You see. And this is why they had to surrender in the greatest all out war in all history against the church, against the Christians. They were going to wipe out Rome, the only productive element in Rome.

Now as we reestablish a truly Christian element in society, under Gods word and law, who are the productive element, we are the future then. We are the ones who will manage the world.

Our time is almost up, and I would like to share something with you not all together pleasant, and that is why I am not going to read from it. A book was presented to me, autographed by the author, Gabriel Wilson. An Alsatian, a woman who grew up into a very vivid and troubled life. As a young girl she went through the first World War in (Alsax?) where they spent a great deal of time in the cellar of the house to escape death, because their street, their town was a battle field again and again, and where one of the lingering smells was the odor of decaying bodies.

Then she married when she matured and her husband’s father was a wealthy European who had extensive holdings, and he assigned his son to Spain to superintend the vineyards and wineries there, and they went there in time for the Spanish civil war. Much of the book is describing that, and then of course she went through World War 2 not too long after that. So of her first 39 years, a very large percentage of them were spent practically on the battlefield. But she describes how the communists took over the Republican government steadily, and on a certain day, execution squads appeared in the cities out of nowhere, and marched up to the homes of the wealthy, of the priests, of Nuns, of any person of any prominence and consequence who was not on their side and liquidated them wholesale. Viciously. That is when of course Franco also began his civil war against them.

She describes how, morality disintegrated thereafter. Now in small town when this kind of lawlessness began to prevail, that it reached the point finally where people said: “Well, anything goes.” So out in the small villages where they were not hit by this kind of wholesale execution, if someone had a grudge against someone else, and they did this in the cities too, they would walk up to the door and knock, and when they answered, execute them. TI was a time to settle all spites. “You were nasty to my boy 6 years ago. You scolded him when he broke your window, I am going to get even with you now.” That sort of thing.

She describes too, who these people were in a very telling episode. Both she and her husband because they could speak a number of European languages, were recruited to act as interpreters and censors and the like, and therefore they were spared from death. And her husband who worked sometimes in another office, told her after hours one day of this one man who had been in who described with considerable zest and delight and all kinds of laughter, the torture of a priest. And at a certain point in the torture he thought: “I’ll cut his liver out while he is still alive and cook it and eat it.” And he told the priest he was going to do it, and he proceeded to do it, and the whole group of them then cooked it and ate it, and he thought it was a big joke.

She was sick at the thought of such barbarism, and she said: “Point that savage out to me when he next comes into the office.” The next day when she was going through his office and there were a number of men standing around, he called her over and introduced her to a distinguished gentleman, who was very obviously cultivated, educated, very urbane, witty, charming, highly civilized. And they chatted a while, and he was a most delightful conversationalist, and after he left he said: “That is the man.” That’s the man.

And it was an incredible shock to her, but it brought home to her this fact; it isn’t having dirty fingernails and matted hair that makes you a savage, it is being without faith. Without Christ. And there are a lot like that. And so it is a grim story, because that episode is not an isolated horror. I will read just one thing, about the food shortage that developed.

“The food shortage became acute, so much so that ration cards had to be issued to avoid hoarding. Flour and sugar were now sold by the cupful, and meat and bread by the ounce. Even with these precautions some items still could not be had. Soon shortages became a daily problem; many who could afford it turned to the black market where prices were extremely high. Those who could afford it bought large amounts of meat, fruit and fresh vegetables. These had to be eaten at once at the public ice plant, as the public ice plant had been closed sometime previously, because it was worn out and broken parts could not be replaced. Many manufacturing plants, both wholesale and retail had to close down their operations when they were unable to replace their stocks. The government stepped in and took over some of these warehouses and established distribution centers for all food and clothing, placing a standard price on all commodities.

The farmers started to black market their produce to the public at higher prices, and they were receiving from the government. the situation was finally corrected when the government posted guards at all important crossroads, making records of the contents of each wagon load, the nature and the amount of each load.

We were supplying them, incidentally, during this time, with munitions and with gasoline so that they could keep their vehicles going. This brought on another problem; it became a popular past time for anyone with a gun to hold up a farmer before he reached the checking point, or even farther on. The farmer saw his labor and profits vanish into thin air, and discouraged, he discontinued to raise any crops, with the exception of those for the use of his own family. This proved to be a disaster for the fresh fruit and vegetable markets. From that time on these articles had to be imported from other countries at still higher prices.

It soon became a common sight to see the once rich farmlands growing nothing but good, healthy weeds. All farm animals were then confiscated, slaughtered, and sent to the food distribution centers. The daily supplies of meat, flour and sugar did not last long at the centers. There would be long lines waiting after the last item had been sold and the doors had been closed.”

If you are interested in getting the book, it is The Blood of Spain by Gabrielle Wilson, published by Lawrence and company. She now resides here in southern California in Orange County, and is not too optimistic about the future.

However, along those lines I would like to comment both on that and on what Doctor Senholdt said yesterday at the seminar about the future. He did very clearly indicate that within a few years we may have a devaluation of the dollar, raising the price of Gold, wage and price controls which will sandbag the market, it has been going because since about last September Nixon began hyper-re-inflation and a Keynesian policy, and he painted a rather bleak picture. He did make clear that it will not be changed by the repeal of any law or the passage of any law, because our present condition is product of what is in the hearts of people. It can be changed, it need not be a slow grinding down into poverty and tyranny as he indicated, he was reflecting incidentally, he cited the very wealthy man, probably a billionaire whose analysis he was reflecting, that man feels that we may have a couple of centuries of dark ages if thing continue the way they are religiously.

The only turn around will come when man’s heart changes, when he is converted. And when he then begins to apply the law word of God to the social order. This can happen. There are indications that it will happen, the Christian school movement is the most hopeful sign of a turn around. Along those lines we are now working to have in early May, a Christian school seminar, here in Southern California with the Reverend Robert Thoburn from Fairfax Virginia coming. He holds a seminar there twice a year, $70 a person plus your travel. It will be cheaper to bring him here, and there is a great deal of interest now in the state for a pre-school movement. So we hope we can start something. The Christian schools are increasing. They will train a different generation, so that we can say with (Judson?) who years ago when he was a missionary in Burma, had begun a great work, had a number of converts, had established a printing press with Burmese type which was an expensive project and it took him a long time to raise the money, had painstakingly translated the Bible into Burmese, and the first edition was ready to come off that little press, and then the Buddhists were able to persuade the government to move against them. The press was destroyed, the plates were destroyed, the translation wiped out; the Christians killed off and Judson himself thrown into a stinking dungeon. And then they laughed at him as they looked down at him in the dungeon and said: “What are your prospects now?” Judson came back: “As bright as the promises of God.” And they were.

Those are our prospects. As bright as the promises of God. We need therefore to lay hold of those promises. And towards that end of course, the seminars will be held. We hope by next Sunday, we will have word on the school seminar, as to whether we are going to be able to hold. Let us bow our heads now for the benediction.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.